The National Health Service is aiming to provide a patient-centred health service, and this involves all staff and all departments. NHS England has produced four “bite-size guides to patient and public participation”. The guides, in particular the first one, are aimed at clinical commissioning groups, to help them involve the public, especially patients and carers, in the design and delivery of high quality health services. The emphasis is working together, alongside social care and local authority organisations, so that people receive integrated, streamlined care, designed for their needs.

Core principles

The guide outlines 12 core principles:

1. Equality and respect
2. Listen properly
3. Make use of all participants’ strengths and skills
4. Respect all participants’ beliefs and opinions
5. Acknowledge and reward contributions
6. Use plain language when communicating and share information openly
7. Learn from previous experiences, adapting the lessons to suit present and future requirements
8. Identify a shared goal that everyone can commit to
9. Spend time planning activities so that they are effective from the start and so that everyone understands
10. Involve people as soon as possible
11. Provide feedback to participants
12. Give support, training, and good leadership where necessary to create a good working and learning environment

The Engagement Cycle

The guide makes reference to The Engagement Cycle, developed by the former NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and InHealth Associates. The cycle focuses on four key elements, pointing out where patient and public involvement are essential:

1. Analyse and plan
2. Design pathways
3. Specify and procure
4. Deliver and improve

The other three bite-size guides are listed below, under Related material, together with details of other literature that might be of interest to you.

Commentary

In order for the NHS to be patient-centred, all teams need to ensure that public, patients, and carers are able to participate in the design and delivery of health services. When designing a new piece of software or a product, we test that product on the consumers, and we must do the same in the NHS. This guide is short but useful as it signposts to further, relevant information, rather than re-writing what has already been written. In addition, there are suggestions of practical steps that you can take, such as identifying who your patient and public stakeholders are. Within your teams and also with the networks you work with, look at the guide together and think about how you can improve patient and public participation in your service design and delivery. You may want to search for evidence of other patient and public participatory activities, and if you do this, think about other terms, such as patient and public engagement or involvement, and also PPI.

Link

Bite-size guides to patient and public participation: Guide 1: Principles for participation in commissioning (PDF)
Patient and Public Voice team
NHS England
February 2014

Related material

In addition to this guide, NHS England has also developed the following bite-size guides, which are linked to the Transformation participation in health and social care guidance, to support patient and public participation in the NHS:

• Governance for participation (PDF)
• Planning for participation (PDF)
• Budgeting for participation (PDF)

Another useful resource is the following book:

Patient and Public Involvement Toolkit
Julia Cartwright, Sally Crowe, Carl Heneghan (Series Editor), Douglas Badenoch (Series Editor), Rafael Perera (Series Editor)
March 2011, BMJ Books
ISBN: 978-1-4051-9910-0